147 years ago today, Colorado became a state. August 1, better known as Colorado Day, is dedicated to looking back at Colorado history. Across the state, Coloradans have the opportunity to celebrate with free and discounted activities. It also gives local businesses the chance to promote and celebrate within their communities.
Community organizations, restaurants, businesses and state agencies have added free and discounted events statewide through August 6. For more information on local events, visit celebrate.colorado.gov/
The Minnesota Creek Road Fire east of Paonia was contained Friday thanks to the efforts of multiple responding agencies. Firefighters from Paonia, Hotchkiss, Crawford, Cedaredge and Delta Fire Departments, including a wildland crew from BLM Montrose, helped mitigate the fire that erupted on Friday.
Help also came in the way of two Type-1 helicopters and through mutual aid with the State of Colorado. The Sheriff's Office and Paonia Fire Department are still working on the total acreage burned and additional details regarding the fire will be released this week once the investigation is complete.
A Cedaredge house caught fire on Friday, just a few hours before firefighters contained the Minnesota Creek Road fire. No one was injured, per the Delta County Independent.
The house was already entirely engulfed when the Cedaredge fire crew arrived, so the emergency team focused on protecting the surrounding structures. They successfully held the fire back from catching the surrounding brush. No reported cause of the fire is known at this time. Local residents who were on the scene early reported that a young male may have been inside at the time the fire started, but made it out with a cat.
In an unexpected turn of events, Grace Community Church of Delta has withdrawn their request to have a property at 1755 Gunnison Avenue rezoned from industrial to B-3. KVNF’s Lisa Young has more.
The local chapter of a national non-profit is looking for community members to participate in a series of meetings to identify solutions to the childcare crisis.
Unify Montrose, part of Unify America, (a national nonpartisan organization that seeks to bring community members together to solve big issues), has been working in the community since earlier this year. Alex Gibson with Unify says Montrose is a childcare desert.
"That means that there are three times as many children as there are licensed child care spots available for those children," said Gibson. "So in the county of Montrose, which includes the city, you're looking at north of 2,600 kids who are under the age of six, and 70% of their parents are in the workforce. So you have this kind of debate where people are being waitlisted for long periods of time. I mean, it's like... if I have to work, if I have to choose between watching my child and my child having quality child care, and me working, I'm going to watch my child."
Gibson says that parents being faced with such difficult decisions is impacting the broader society, and leading to staff shortages across sectors.
Ultimately he says it's about the entire community's quality of life.
"Do you want your neighbor to have a better quality of life, better economic quality, better educational quality for their children, just a better overall quality of time that they can spend for themselves? Childcare is going to affect that," Gibson added. "And that's going to affect every aspect of the economy in Montrose."
Unify Montrose is inviting members of the public to participate in community panel discussions on the issue. While panel sign-ups closed on Monday, the public is invited to watch the panel lottery selection on Aug. 2. The panels that will meet starting the third week of August and will conclude in November.
You can find more information at unifymontrose.org
We'll have more on the childcare crisis and its intersection with the state's new free preschool program on this Thursday's newscast.
Recently Colorado played host to the annual National Federation of Community Broadcasters conference, including KVNF. As one of the conference's keynote speakers, Dr. Dwinita Mosby Tyler touched on common conundrums afflicting Diversity, Equity and Inclusion work, as well as what causes them and some solutions.
Dr. Dwinita Mosby Tyler founded the Equity Project and the HR Shop. She’s also the former Senior Vice President and Chief Inclusion Officer for Children’s Hospital Colorado. She was the first Black woman to hold that position in the organization’s history.
Dr. Mosby Tyler spoke to the room full of community broadcasters from around the country and region about the collective grief our world is feeling from a global pandemic before diving into DEI work.
Her speech was a companion to bigger themes surrounding the three day conference, centering around public media’s place in a world healing from COVID.
In her speech, Dr. Mosby Tyler focuses on coming together to address a need for equity and diversity in public media. She says equity is the newest frontier in civil justice, and we’re the least mature in this area. She drew from a model created by Dr. Barbara J. Love when talking about confronting bias head-on.
